On Mary’s Mountain

The internationally renowned Catholic author and commentator, George Weigel, spoke at Mount St. Mary’s on Thursday evening, March 13th. Weigel, perhaps best known for his best-selling biography of Pope John Paul II, Witness to Hope, is one of the foremost Catholic intellectuals in American history. His authorship of more than twenty books as well as countless articles led the seminary rector, Msgr. Steven Rohlfs, to rightly introduce him on Thursday night as “a veritable Erasmus in America.”

His lecture at the Mount, based on his most recently published book, Evangelical Catholicism released in 2013, was held at 7pm in the university’s Knott Auditorium. The hour long presentation took the audience through an analysis of various epochs in the history of the Church before eventually arriving at our current situation in the 21st century. He discussed several of the positive trends currently advancing in the Church and also spoke at length on the impact of the three most recent pontificates of John Paul II, Benedict XVI, and Francis. Weigel’s insights are invaluable due to his close involvement with the inside functioning of the Church’s hierarchy. Among other things, he concluded that the witness of the individual Christian to his or her faith is the most powerful tool for the universal spread of Catholicism. At the conclusion of the lecture, Weigel answered questions for about twenty minutes before signing copies of his books.